Vero Beach Airport Director Todd Scher was attending last week’s City Council meeting when he received an email informing him that Breeze Airways was about to announce plans to expand its service here to a sixth destination – New Haven, Connecticut.
By the time he returned to his office, the twice weekly flights, scheduled to start Dec. 13, had already been loaded onto the Utah-based airline’s website.
“There was almost no notice with this one,” Scher said of the new service, which will connect Vero Beach to New Haven with flights on Mondays and Friday.
The Aug. 13 announcement was the second of the summer for Breeze, which last month unveiled its plan to add two New York destinations, Newburgh and Islip, to its Vero Beach route map.
On Oct. 2, Breeze will not only resume its seasonal service between Vero Beach Regional Airport and Islip’s Long Island MacArthur Airport, but it will also double the number of flights to four per week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
The Vero-Islip service was introduced in October, but it was suspended in May for the summer months, despite Breeze officials saying the route was well-received.
The airline then plans to offer twice weekly flights to and from Newburgh’s Stewart International Airport – located 70 miles north of Manhattan, on the western bank of the Hudson River – starting on Nov. 21.
New Haven will become Breeze’s second Connecticut destination for people who want to travel between Vero Beach and the Northeast. The airline already flies to and from Hartford, as well as Westchester County, New York, and Providence, Rhode Island.
The Westchester County Airport in White Plains, one of New York City’s northern suburb communities, is 50 miles south of Newburgh.
“New Haven fits a gap for us, as it is almost directly in between White Plains and Hartford,” Breeze spokesman Ryne Williams said. “We have seen great demand for our routes from Vero to White Plains and Hartford, but we’ve also been hearing from guests in the area asking for added service from New Haven.
The addition of the New Haven flights will not be offset by a reduction of service to other destinations, Williams said, adding, “We’re just expanding our reach in the region, as we’ve continued to do in the Northeast.”
Despite being blindsided by Breeze’s latest announcement, Scher welcomed the airline’s expanded service, but he warned the city-owned airport has physical and operational limits.
For example: Scher said the airport would be required to provide a greater level of fire-rescue response capability if Breeze’s service reaches a monthly average of five departures per day.
Also, the terminal can accommodate only so many people – a reality that becomes problematic when, because of delays common to air travel, there’s an overlap between passengers from incoming and outgoing flights.
Scher said those situations, especially during the height of Vero Beach’s busy winter season, also put stress on the airport’s parking facilities, passenger pick-up areas, security-scanning operation and policing.
“It’s functional, but not comfortable – and not for just the airport staff, but for the passengers, too, because nobody likes being in cramped quarters when they’re traveling,” Scher said.
“Right now, we can handle it, as long as we don’t have too many flights departing or arriving too close together,” he added. “That happened a few times last season, and we dealt with it the best we could. We just need to make sure, as things get busier later this year, the airline builds in some cushion between incoming and outgoing flights.
“But there’s still a limit to how many flights we can handle.”
During the peak of the season last year, Breeze departures increased to 29 per week. The additional flights scheduled for New Haven, Newburgh and Islip this fall could push that number to 35, if the airline doesn’t reduce service to other destinations.
“If that’s the case, it’s going to be interesting,” Scher said. “Last December, there were a number of days when there were five departures on the same day. We could have more of those days this season, but we have to make sure we don’t average five per day for an entire month.”